Hot take: should GMs let players reroll natural 1s or embrace the chaos?

Ran a session last Tuesday where my buddy Dave rolled a nat 1 on a persuasion check to talk a guard into letting us through a gate. I played it straight and said his character accidentally insulted the guard's mom, which started a whole fight that derailed the plot for 45 minutes. Dave goes "man you shoulda let me reroll, that was just bad luck" but I think the fail made the night more memorable. Other GMs Ive talked to are split on this - some use a homebrew rule where you can spend inspiration for a reroll on a nat 1. What do you guys do at your table when someone crit fails?

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer_sanchez671mo ago

I've been running games for about 8 years now and I never let people reroll nat 1s. You said "the fail made the night more memorable" and that's exactly right. My group has a rule that nat 1s on skill checks just mean something funny or inconvenient happens, not always catastrophic. Like if you roll a 1 on persuasion, your character says the wrong thing but maybe it's awkward instead of starting a war. Combat crit fails are different for us because losing your turn or dropping your weapon is punishment enough. We save inspiration rerolls for important story moments like death saves or the final boss fight. Honestly the chaos of a natural 1 has given us more inside jokes and fun memories than any perfectly rolled session ever did.

blair_davis1mo ago

Jumping in to agree with you completely here. I've been playing since the early 90s and our group always kept nat 1s in play, no rerolls allowed. The best moments almost always come from those accidental disasters, like the time our rogue tried to pick a simple lock and somehow ended up gluing himself to the door. It became a running joke for years about that one sticky situation. I think people get too wrapped up in wanting everything to go perfectly when the real fun is in the shared chaos.